23. A most wonderful spectacle is thus presented: on the one hand a writer gaining Shakespearian renown for works he repudiates; on the other, a public reading and admiring him because of the very art he thus repudiates. For 'tis idle to assert that Tolstoy's religious writings are what draws readers unto him. Had he published _only_ his religious writings, they might have indeed been bought, they might have found their place on parlor table, they might have even occasionally been glanced into; but read and studied and pondered they would not have been. For Tolstoy's religious writings, in their spirit, are not one whit different from that of _The_ Book which has indeed been for ages lying in the parlors of almost every Christian household; but it is _not_ read, it is _not_ discussed, it is _not_ talked about, like the latest somersaulting performance of some popular magazine-scribe. Nay, the surest way to make one's self unavailable nowadays at social gathering of the parlor sort would be to talk therein solemnly of the very book which in so many houses forms such indispensable part of parlor outfit. Nay, has it not come in society to such a pass that the very presence of _The_ Book on parlor table is already an evidence that the host is _not_ a member of the circle which looks upon itself as _the_ circle,--the select, the exclusive, the highest, in short? 24. The public, then, is interested in Tolstoy the artist more than in the preacher, for the same reason that when Emerson lands in England only a handful of mortals greet him; while when Mr. Sullivan lands in England the streets cannot hold the thousands who flock to receive him. Tolstoy, on the other hand, protests that whosoever looks to him as the artist, sees not him, knows not him; that he is aught else now; that mere art, in fact, is to him a business no longer worthy of a serious soul. The public again, in its ever-confident patronizingness, says unto him: "But for thy great artistic genius, O Leo, son of Nicolas, with thy latest religious antics and somersaultings, we would call thee--a crank. But as to a great genius we shall be merciful unto thee, and bear with many a confession, many a cobbled shoe, if thou givest us only more of Olenins, more of Karenins." 25. Who is here right, who is here wrong,--the public with its millions, Tolstoy in his loneliness?